


Prolonging Nostalgia

by cecilkirk



Category: Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Alternate Universe - World War II, Angst, M/M, Ryden, soldier!ryan
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-02
Updated: 2016-07-28
Packaged: 2018-05-30 20:51:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 4,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6439981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cecilkirk/pseuds/cecilkirk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Ryan gets sent off to fight, Brendon tries his best not to miss him. As time goes on, this becomes much more difficult than he ever anticipated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. back and forth and now

“I think I'm just breathing, that's all. And there's a difference between breathing and being alive.”

\--John Boyne,  _The Absolutist_

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	2. now; 1

It should't have mattered, really.

"...Brendon?"

It didn't. It absolutely didn't.

"...Did you hear me, Bren? I said--"

Blink. Head snaps up. Breathe in. "I heard."

Breathe out.

"I don't care."

Across the table, Spencer melts into the image of incomprehension. So much he wants to say and too little he deems appropriate. Inside him a combat, threatening to quarter him. Brendon knows what that's like.

He watches Spencer's chest heave, slowly, languidly, as if he didn't have a care in the world. And maybe he didn't; after all, the news wasn't meant to burden him. He was just the bringer of bad news.

Brendon stares at the fork freshly set down beside his plate. He wants to think something of it.

"...Are you all right?"

He lifts his eyes to Spencer's. Something like panic constricts his throat.

 _Kill the messenger_ , he thinks with a smirk. Lobbed hard enough, it probably could. 

"Look, Bren, he went off to  _war_. I know this is hard to hear, but it's not completely out of the realm of possibility."

In the neck, maybe. Poor bringer of bad news.

"Look, we're all going to miss him. You're not alone in this."

Or maybe the eye, if he really aimed. Poor messenger.

"...Please say something, Bren. Please."

Maybe nothing at all. Maybe silence. Poor friend.

"I have nothing to say," Brendon says evenly, words and syllables spaced like military cemeteries.

Brendon smirks again. He feels like he's been sucker punched.

But it doesn't matter. It definitely doesn't.

Sighing in frustration, Spencer leans forward to close the space between them. "Look," he mutters, dropping his voice, "I know you guys were close, and I know you didn't want him to go. I know you guys had something....unique."

Brendon's face burns. Spencer takes in his reaction and deems it appropriate enough to continue.

"I'm your friend, Brendon. I know you're going to miss him probably more than any of us, and I want to--"

"It doesn't matter."

Spencer blinks slowly, eyes widening in disbelief. Again with the inability to understand. Surely Brendon wasn't that complicated a creature. " _What?"_

Brendon picks up his fork and begins to prod his food with it. "It really doesn't matter. You told me, and I'll move on."

Spencer stares at him. Brendon won't look up.

"Brendon, you can't just act like this didn't happen."

Breathe in, breathe out. Smooth, easy. Machination. "I'm not. I'm just saying that I'll get over it eventually."

Spencer sighs again, but reserved, to himself more than Brendon. "I sincerely hope you never do."

Blinking, Brendon raises his eyes, but now Spencer won't look. Brendon can't breathe.

They say nothing. The words reverberate in their bones like bees, angry and desperate to attack. But they remain silent, containing their pugilism and saving it for a rainy day. Eventually Spencer leaves. He gets on a train; it could be months before Brendon sees him again. Alone with his thoughts, the bees dive between his ribs. They had to resort to destroying the shell they were trapped in.

_Did I feed the dog this morning?_

With no one else to ignore, Brendon heads home on another train heading in a different direction. Goodbye, Spencer. Poor Brendon.

_Fuck. Forgot to buy new guitar strings._

Off the train, into the city, onto the stairs. It's the warmest day so far this summer, and somehow the doorknob to the apartment is cold enough to rival winter.

Out the window of his bedroom, Brendon watches a clumsy neighbor mow his lawn and hit the garden. He's an old guy, fat and upset at the world for everything he never did. Brendon can hear him curse the skies for making him kill a few flowers. Brendon can feel himself want to harmonize.

The room is hot; the apartment is hot. Cruelly stuffy, filled with stagnant air. It makes him claustrophobic, but he knows to open the windows would allow more in. There was a saying about devils and evils that would describe this, but Brendon could never remember what it was.

On his bed sleeps the dog. She hadn't heard him enter, or at least didn't care. Brendon doesn't blame her. He wouldn't either.

He sits down next to her, letting his palm trace his back. Leaning forward to peek at her closed eyes for all the importance and power it could give him, his shirt hangs off his chest. The chain around his neck shifts, leaving cold fingers to trace around his collarbones and throat. He had forgotten he was even wearing it.  _Now I never will_ , he thinks. He wants to smirk, but the instinct is gone now. It's past the time of making light of the situation.

_He left me._

Brendon thumbs her floppy basset hound ears, playing with them, testing her limits. He wonders if it will wake her.

_He's never coming home._

He traces his fingers over her paw, covering her toes with them. Like a daughter's shoes on her father's during a dance. Articulate, affectionate.

_He's dead._

Brendon thinks if he sniffs her, he could smell him. It is a stupid wish, and he berates himself for letting it cross his mind. Outside the unhappy man begins to yell again, but it breaks into a choppy silence as he mourns the accidental murder. He can't do anything about it. No point in trying. In the whole scheme of things, it was useless to fix.

_It didn't matter, really._

Brendon presses a kiss to the top of her head. She doesn't wake up. Slicing through the haze comes another voice, one softer. Someone is consoling him. He finds himself wishing the dog could speak. But it's idiotic optimism, and he hates himself for it. Maybe he shouldn't, but he does. And what does it matter? He wasn't here to stop it anymore. He never would be. It was pointless to stop now. 

_It shouldn't matter._

She growls in her sleep, fighting off dream monsters never hesitating to protect herself. Brendon wishes the saying about devils and evils would come to him.

 


	3. now; 2

He didn’t remember falling asleep. He woke to find the dog sleeping parallel to him, snoring deeply. She took up that half of the bed without a second thought as to who should have been there. He craves that ignorance.

Brendon sits up, trying to blink himself more awake. Like a camera fluttering open and closed, he becomes erratically aware of his world. Early, early morning; god, I should have showered; how is it still this hot?

He plucks his drenched shirt off his chest, trying to air his skin. Everything in this late July weather was disgustingly humid and it left Brendon drenched, smothered in heat that soaked into his pores. He lets go of his shirt and it flutters back to his skin. He feels no less cooler. But the chain around his neck is somehow like a string of chill, kissing his sternum as he hunches forward.

Brendon looks over at the dog. She is completely unaware of it all.

Delicately but easily Brendon unhinges the clasp and takes the chain off. It was just a chain; no pendant, no locket, nothing to make it important. It wasn’t important. It didn’t matter.

He looks down at his hand. With his fingers spread slightly, the metal drips between his knuckles like it was elusive. Like it ever could be, he thinks bitterly. But he would let it be. He didn’t want it anymore. It didn’t matter.

None of this mattered anymore.

Quickly fisting the chain, Brendon swings his hand back far enough that it hits the headboard. He winces, but it doesn’t prevent him from throwing the necklace across the bedroom, striking the wall like a focused flash of rain before sliding down and sinking behind a dresser. He could forget it.

Out of sight, out of mind.

The dog raises her head suddenly, looking at Brendon with wide, questioning eyes. She would never understand. He never wanted her to.

Brendon pets her, playing with her ears, prodding her toes. She stands, fully awake and ready to play, bounding across the bed and barking. Brendon smiles, and it feels like cracking sun-dried dirt. Minor destruction, little horrors. She didn’t care enough to notice. Somewhere in his bones, he was grateful for her ignorance.

 

 

 

She was older now. She didn’t need a leash.

In the attempt to wear her out and expel all the energy he didn’t feel he deserved, Brendon takes her for a walk. She trotted neatly at his ankles, occasionally darting a few inches ahead or wayward to investigate something before returning. He didn’t need to control her. She always returned.

From his apartment it’s six blocks to downtown, but the dense heat drags down seconds. Sometimes children stop to pet her and he finds himself forced to look a parent in the eye and offer something close to conversation, but otherwise he is unnoticed. No one recognizes him, and he recognizes no one, even if he had lived in the town for a few years. He didn’t mind; up until lately it had been comforting. Separation, not isolation.

He brings his focus down to his feet and finds that she has crossed the empty street, sniffing the pavement in front of--

Oh.

He clenches his jaw, bracing himself to rescue her.

“Hey, come on,” he says softly. She is intrigued by the space in front of the doorway but she can’t possibly remember, she was so young and it was so long ago, she can’t possibly--

“Dot,” he says more firmly. She looks up at him, but returns to her investigation, walking in a half circle so they didn’t face each other.

Brendon breathes in, breathes out. He looks away from her to mute his misplaced frustration and looks at the building instead. It wasn’t even a flower shop anymore; it was hollow, devoid of people and the smattering of life flowers brought. The only color left inside was the obnoxiously painted walls. It didn’t serve a purpose anymore. Maybe for someone else, eventually, but for now it was useless.

He wants to break the lock on the door and scrape off the paint with his fingernails. But he doesn’t. It shouldn’t bother him.

It doesn’t bother him, he decides. It doesn’t matter.

He swallows, staring at his reflection in the glass. There was too much sun. It blocked his face, leaving a patch of light where it should be.

A few feet away, she is asleep just in front of the door, soaking up the heat from the middle of the sidewalk.

Holy God, we praise thy name, he thinks bitterly.


	4. back; 1

****There was a buzz in the store that day, the product of people milling around, admiring the flowers and trying to deem what was good enough for friends and loved ones. It was an early, crisp spring day, and the front door had been propped open to welcome the air. It was comfortable and easy, something Brendon wanted to submerge himself in.

“This all?”

Brendon blinks, turning to look at the cashier. He nods to the flowers on the counter, and Brendon beams. She was going to love them.

“Yes,” he says, voice light and dreamy. “Yes, this is all.”

The cashier grins, dwelling in the secondhand joy. He scribbles out Sarah’s name on a card and places it in the front of the bouquet. “A girlfriend?”

Brendon smiles to himself as he hands the cashier the few dollars. “Maybe in another life.”

The cashier gives him a queer look, but doesn’t hesitate to take the payment.

Brendon’s fingers wrap around the bouquet, crinkling the foil. He would be home soon--his apartment was only a few blocks away--place them in water, and they would be fine by the time she got home. He would place them on the kitchen counter, maybe, or maybe in her bedroom, something for her to stumble upon and be taken by surprise. She never expected much on her birthday because most of her friends were fairly broke, Brendon included. Brendon grinned a little wider. God, she was going to love them.

Spring air held promises and hope, and it beckoned him outside. He made his way to the door, having to cross the entire store to do so. Not a very well-planned layout but they hadn’t built the building, after all, and they’d only been open for a few months. In the back of his head, Brendon hopes the wayward hope of the cool April breeze will permit them longevity.

Brendon looks down at his feet, watching as one crosses the threshold, and colliding into someone walking right in front of the door. Brendon is knocked off balance, dropping the flowers and misstepping.

“Sorry, sorry--”

“It’s all right,” Brendon says. He looks up at the other half of the collision with pleasantness in his eyes and an easy smile on his face. The man looked a little panicked, residual worry easing away from his features. He offers a short grin, and Brendon returns it in full. Brendon looks down at his feet to grab the flowers, but they’re gone.

“Hey!” the man says firmly, but not to Brendon. His voice and gaze are directed down the street, at the trail of petals scattered down the sidewalk. The man looks at the lead in his hand and the empty collar resting almost mockingly on the ground.

“Dottie! Come here!”

Ten feet away the dog stops, staring at the two of them. The man takes a step toward her and she bounds forward, playful and happy. She has a few flowers in her mouth, stems sideways like they were twigs. Brendon watches as the petals fall to the cement, gradually and inevitably.

The man picks up his dog and pries the flowers from her mouth. He looks like he wants to berate her, but his embarrassment extinguishes his anger. His eyes travel from the basset hound puppy to Brendon, and Brendon says nothing. In the man’s hand are the slobbery, wilted, crushes tokens of his appreciation for Sarah. Her surprise. Her birthday present.

Brendon watches the man’s eyes widen in horror, anticipating Brendon to explode. His cheeks grow pink with embarrassment and fear.

“I--I’m so, so sorry,” he stammers. “I can pay you back, or…” His words die. He can’t justify his dog’s actions, and he doesn’t know how to right the wrong.

Brendon’s eyes drop down to the flowers, the trail of petals, the card with Sarah’s name between their feet. He doesn’t know what to say, so he doesn’t say anything.

He laughs.

It throws the man off, and he blinks at Brendon. As Brendon’s laugh grows and he’s doubled over, the man sets his dog down. She immediately begins to chew on the few flowers she hadn’t grabbed before. Brendon laughs even harder, and the man joins in. Softly at first, but eventually meeting Brendon’s volume, his passion, his thoughts. They stand just under the sun, warming their clothes and skin. The breeze carries their laughter and happiness and serendipitous joy away for others to hear, to cause more happiness, to create a chain somewhere. God, this is what spring was--new beginnings and unexpected joy. Brendon begins to compose himself as the man does, wiping away tears and sucking in air. Someone across the street stares at them, but Brendon doesn’t look back. He doesn’t care about anyone else in this moment aside from the man in front of him.

“Brendon,” he says, offering his hand with a giggle still underlying his voice.

The man takes it, a smile loosely painted on his lips. His blush has turned from embarrassment to ecstasy, reddening his cheeks deeply. “Ryan.”

Ryan points down to their feet. “Dottie,” he says. Brendon barks out a laugh.

“Hey, well,” Ryan says, brushing windblown hair out of his face, “I really am sorry. Can I make it up to you somehow?”

Brendon bends down and grabs the card from where it’s half-covered by Dottie’s front paw. He flashes its front to Ryan. “I got these as a gift.”

Ryan’s face falls slightly. “I can buy a replacement, then,” hurrying his words through the anxiousness to make things right again.

“You could,” Brendon says. “Or you could join us for dinner tonight.”

Ryan raises an eyebrow. “Are you sure?”

Brendon nods, pocketing the card. “I am. It’s her birthday, and she’s a people person. She’ll love it.”

“Yeah?”

Brendon smiles. “Yeah.”

Beneath them, Dottie growls, her voice muted by petals and stems. Brendon and Ryan both laugh at the sound.

“All right,” Ryan says, returning the smile. “I can do that.”

Brendon feels his stomach knot. Must be excitement, he thinks.

“Turner Square Diner at 6,” he says.

Ryan grabs Dottie, lead wrapped around his hand. He didn’t bother to put the collar on her because he was going to hold her the rest of the way to wherever they were headed. Brendon beams at the sight, at Ryan’s acknowledgement of defeat, his unwillingness to fight her.

“See you then, Brendon,” he says, taking one final look at the floral wreckage at his feet, making sure Dottie’s mouth is free of evidence.

“See you then, Ryan,” Brendon chimes. With a grin and a wave, Ryan walks away.

The breeze picks up and petals swirl loosely around Brendon’s ankles, some into the street, some scattering the sidewalk. He smiles to no one but himself, delighting in the uncertainty of the world and how a lack of control was sometimes a wonderful thing.

Wonderful, he thinks, toeing a white petal and thinking of the white patches on Dottie’s fur, the white shirt Ryan had been wearing, the white fence of teeth behind Ryan’s lips. It was all wonderful.


	5. forth; 1

Even from where he was, Ryan knew it could only end badly.

Two boys--maybe men legally, just over the line to get them here, but not in any other way--sat across from him. Ryan stole glances at the one making him anxious, and he returned Ryan’s unasked question with a devious grin.

Ryan looked out the window, but not for long. He knew he shouldn’t watch, but he couldn’t help himself. It would be a trainwreck. Ryan had always been one to gawk.

The boy on the left was of average height, Ryan gauged from how he sat, and a bit plump. Probably wasn’t given a lot of attention beyond what was needed to survive. Apparently this invisibility was a skill he had honed over his lifetime because he was quite an expert.

Ryan raised his eyebrow as the boy showed Ryan the carton’s worth of cigarettes he had meticulously stolen from the boy sitting next to him, who was too busy gazing out the window to notice. Ryan wonders if maybe he had noticed but settled on apathy instead, taking to enjoying the last moments of his relative freedom. He could afford to miss cigarettes if it meant recounting happy memories.

A pang of sadness sits heavy Ryan’s guts. The boy does not attempt to hide the cigarettes; he leaves them sprawled on his lap, waiting for the wistful owner to react violently. He awaited chaos and uproar patiently, eagerly. Ryan feels pity where he had previously felt humor. It leaves him empty and lost.

War is hell, he thinks hollowly.

Ryan turns his head to look out the window, craning his neck to focus on the tracks beneath. He’d never been on a train before. He would gladly never have done so knowing where it was taking him.

After a few moments the taller boy reaches for a smoke, looking at the other’s lap, and rolls his eyes.

“You fucker,” he mutters through a grin as he takes the cigarettes back, carefully placing them in the box one by one. Coffin nails, Ryan thinks. Like bullets, too. They were far too young to be smoking. They had probably lied to get enlisted, to get on this train, to be here in this moment.

So much deception for unchanging jokes.

They had no idea what they were about to face.

But to be fair, neither did Ryan. All he had ever known was behind him now, states away in a sixth floor apartment. Or, at least, all he had ever cared to know.

The boys laugh at each other through feigned disgust and anger. Ryan was wrong; it hadn’t ended badly at all. They shove each other playfully, and they could possibly be confused for children. Future toddlers in army fatigues. It put Ryan on edge.

Ryan looks out the window again, watching the world pass him with apathy. He decided the bad ending was yet to come.


	6. now; 3

When Brendon can’t stand the sun anymore, he heads home.

When he remembers what awaits him there, he promptly turns around and heads elsewhere.

She whines in confusion at his feet. He can’t bring himself to explain it to her.

 

 

 

“Christ almighty,” she says. “You look like shit.”

He knows she meant it to be funny, but he can’t laugh.

Sarah stands in her kitchen, pouring water for Brendon and herself. She hands it to Brendon and grins down at the dog, who jumps and barks around her feet happily. Sarah gently pushes the dog away and stops grinning when she looks at Brendon again.

“How are you holding up?”

He pulls the glass of water closer to him, sliding it across the counter. He says nothing.

The dog offers a sharp bark. Sarah shushes her gently.

“Bren,” she says, “please talk to me.”

His eyes fixate on the ring around her finger.

When had that happened?

She follows his eyes, grins again but more shyly this time. “Six months ago,” she answers. She knew his thoughts. They’d been so close for so long that they didn’t need words.

“After I moved out,” she explains. 

After Ryan had moved in.

Brendon finishes his water, wishing it were something stronger. 

She talks about her life and her fiance. When she realizes Brendon will not respond, she continues. When she realizes Brendon isn’t mentally present, she continues further. She wants to drag something out of him, but he won’t let her.

“Please talk to someone, Bren,” she says, and he is taken aback by how different her voice sounds now--tighter, thinner, quieter. “You can’t keep this inside. You have to talk to someone.”

Her eyes are full of tears. He looks away so he won’t see them fall.

The dog sleeps with her back against the bar. Brendon picks her up and leaves promptly without leaving Sarah with a word.

But he didn’t need to. She knew his thoughts.

 

 

 

He carries the sleeping dog home, and she is not as heavy as the thought circling around the inside of his skull:

He craved the metal.

The ring on Sarah’s finger, the necklace now behind his dresser--he needed it.

God, he fucking needed it.

He goes into his bedroom and thinks of grabbing it. The sun is setting now, streaming through the blinds like polite intrusion. To grab it would be to mirror this morning; to grab it would be to repeat past in reverse.

He won’t repeat anything. He doesn’t need to. It didn’t matter.

He stands and steps away from the dresser, away from the empty bed, away from the room that once felt welcoming.

She sleeps downstairs, sprawled in the middle of the floor without a care in the world. Brendon joins her; he doesn’t care about anything either. She doesn’t stir. He is grateful for it.

The sun doesn't feel any different whether he is collapsed on his floor or in his bedroom. The sky changes for no one, apparently. He stares up at the ceiling and thinks of how much love can be packed into such little metal. He thinks it's sad, pitiful even; he knows Sarah wouldn't.


	7. back; 2

God, it feels so heavy against his skin. And it really shouldn't.

"Whoa now," Ryan says, touching Brendon's shoulder. "It's not--it's not that big of a deal, it's just--"

Brendon blinks up at him through tear-laden lashes and the stream of daylight and pulls them together. Ryan can't find the words.

Brendon is the one to grin, to tip his head forward, to initiate the kiss. His cheek is warmed by the sun but he can feel the coolness of spilled tears around his eyes and of the metal against his collarbones. Ryan rubs his thumb on Brendon's shoulder, and he beams. More tears fall down his cheeks, but God, he couldn't care less.

He sucks in a thick, wavering breath, grinning still and clearing his throat. "God, you--you--I can't _believe_ \--"

Ryan laughs and kisses Brendon's cheek. "It really doesn't mean much, doll."

"But it does," Brendon says. "It's--it's incredible."

A half-grin curls across Ryan's face, complementing the sunlight almost to the point of competition. "It's a promise," he says against Brendon's skin, pressing kisses to his cheek and jaw. "A reminder."

"Of what?" Brendon asks, beaming at the feeling of Ryan's lips on his face, at being adored so completely.

Ryan pulls his head back just far enough that he can look into Brendon's eyes, admiring how they reflect the sun. Even in their shitty apartment, beauty never fails.

"Anything you need," Ryan says softly before pressing a kiss to Brendon's forehead. "Anything."

And just like that, Brendon is being swept under. He is falling by the force of something greater than he. Ryan takes his face and kisses him, and Brendon's knees buckle. No, he isn't strong enough for something as great as this. He wasn't made to resist Ryan.

He was too busy falling for him.


End file.
